


You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To

by TheSupernaut (orphan_account)



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Character Study, Could Be Canon, Crack Treated Seriously, Dress Up, F/F, Fluff and Angst, For Science!, IN SPACE!, Idiots in Love, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Loneliness, Protectiveness, Revenge, Secret Identity, Watching Someone Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25643203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TheSupernaut
Summary: "She stays her hand, because to ruin Cerberus's work would be an affront to science, even if the thing on the table is nothing but an amalgam, a duplicate made of Shepard's spare parts."Or: Miranda finds a way to get revenge on Cerberus while on the run, and drops in to make sure Shepard gets the rest she needs.
Relationships: Female Shepard & David Anderson, Female Shepard & Female Shepard Clone (Mass Effect), Miranda Lawson/Female Shepard
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To

” **I felt myself still reliving a past which was no longer anything more than the history of another person;“ -** **Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time**

Some of the “leftovers” from the Lazarus project were stolen, and Miranda doesn’t find out until after she’s seen Shepard dragged off in handcuffs away from the Normandy, Anderson doing the best a surrogate dad can amid Hackett’s stony gaze representing the upper echelon of Alliance politics. 

Shepard smiles, a grim thing stretched on thin, pursed lips, and looks back at Miranda with a wink of her one good eye. “The eyepatch is temporary,” Dr. Chakwas starts to explain, but to Miranda, everything sounds like background noise against rushing water.

The gun, ornate and ancient and completely impractical for modern warfare is held tight in her hand. The gun shakes, her hand seems to shake, as the caffeine surges through her blood and is already starting to puts her in that weird stasis of half alertness , half exhaustion.

All she can concentrate on is that wink, and the email about theft, and her (possibly?) friends give her hugs or muffled goodbyes or icey platitudes of respect, but she can’t focus on any of it.

****

The email mentioned two names. And one “Rasa.”

****

Faking the life of a high born doctor is much less fun then being an actual doctor for Shepard on the Normandy. 

The windows of the upgraded high-up suite are wide as they are tall, and Miranda makes sure to close them partially ,less someone from the nearby shop roofs has a high powered rifle aimed unobstructed on her. 

Her heartbeat quickens, sweat forms, and she stills her movements.

Inhale. Pause. Exhale.

Inhale. Pause. Exhale.

Only her. Only an ex-terrorist and her masks.

She looks down, opens the case and starting at the ends of her hair with the scissors. Each snip glacial, with every calming breath, more hair falls like leaves from a tree in mid-autumn.

She is not used to physically clandestine operations, but Cerberus’s arms are long and their reach is vast. Red eye contacts, a fake ID, tools to warp her hair into something someone from two centuries past would’ve worn.

Short and spiked. She frowns back at the person in the nearby mirror.

“Well, at least now we don’t have to hide the fact we were ever in the closet,” she grumbles to herself, putting the tools away and lying back on the soft sheets. Sinking down slightly, the chill of the AC lashing against her exposed arms. The ice in her champagne bucket near total liquid. 

The lancing ache in her legs and lower back from stiff muscles.

It is foolish to compare this bed to a cloud, but that’s what comparison crosses her mind. A dull ache stirs in her chest, and she crawls at snail speed to get properly dressed for bed. Nude, and with Shepard’s gift within her grasp. 

Always within her grasp.

She tries not to remember the burn of the swallowed champagne she’d shared with Shepard before the Omega Relay, that brief moment of foolish tenderness she’d allowed herself. 

Enraptured in Shepard’s shy nakedness, the story each scar told, fingers teasing and touching her, the calm after the violent pain of Shepard’s newly lost virginity, touching until the Commander had cried out her name like she was begging forgiveness from the Lord.

The thought comes that she should pleasure herself, to keep the memory as a memento to get her through this madness, but she dismisses it. Sex had always, would always, be mechanical to her. The warm enough embrace of the sheets satisfies the ache. 

Condemned to a life of opulence and isolation. Before being unable to keep her eyes open amid the darkened room and distant glow of the neon lights of the nameless city below her room, Miranda wonders how Shepard had made her become so soft.

****

”Hello Giselle.”

The blonde turns, slowly, as if she can only spin around like one of those old toys on a battery powered platform.

Shock colors her expression at the other woman, the barrel of a gun leveled square at the center of her head.

”Miranda?” Her French accent is heavy, fear ever present, as if she didn’t expect this pale phantom to come in for a girl talk on her date night.

Miranda sighs, putting away the pistol, and pulling out a wire like the ones in old mobster movies used to garrote witnesses. Tugs at her shirt cuffs and gloves.

Even in a suit and tie, she must maintain her professional demeanor. The air feels more like they’ve stepped into a sauna, heavy and warm and uncomfortable. The unnamed cities most fashionable restaurant. Cerberus employees would expect nothing less.

For a few moments, only the gurgling of water going down the sink drain and the distant sound of soft jazz fill the room.

Giselle swallows, opens and closes her mouth.

”You know why I’m here,” Miranda says, her tone flat. The tight suit jacket and dress shirt unfortunately accenting her curves, her tie loosened slightly to prevent self-strangulation.

”If this...” Giselle stops. Swallows again. “If this is about the Lazerus project...”

But before she can finish, Miranda sighs again, quick in flourishing the gun and taking quick aim. Even with the suppressor “wet,” the noise leaves a ringing in her ears. Her hand aches from the grip and the jerk of the recoil. She can barely hear and see the shell casing hit the tile, the force of the sudden impact knocking Giselle to the floor, blood pouring from her neck.

A horrible gurgling noise spills from Giselle, blood pouring through ring studded fingers and dripping down the mirror and dark marble countertop. 

Miranda lowers herself to eye level, warily trying not to stain her shined dress shoes. Almost lazy in her movements, as if murdering a Cerberus financier was just as everyday as watching Shepard him and happily slurp down her coffee. Puts an arm on Giselle’s bare shoulder, the other woman’s bright red dress now stained the same red as the wine she split with her date. Faux comfort, as if the two women had know each other since long ago.

“Your name was on an email. I knew the project would have some failures, some mutations, but I,” Miranda pauses, grim smile on her face and shaking her head. “I can’t quite believe the way Cerberus donated the extra parts.”

More gurgling, Giselle’s face shining brightly with a torrent of sweat from the strong overhead light. The tile takes on an almost ghoulish shade of pink. Her eyes are wide, the terror plain on her face.

She slides one of the Frenchwoman’s rings off her slim fingers, happily humming after seeing it’s a perfect fit for herself.

“We truly are living in the best of all possible worlds,” Miranda says, almost wistful in her tone, rising to a standing position, the crack of her knee joints drowning out the slow, dying breaths that barely escape Giselle’s lungs now. 

Pocketing the shell casing, Miranda steps over and around as Giselle draws her last breath, and washes her hands of any possible blood. 

She may not have the expertise that is forced in military life like Shepard has, but she has subsumed enough medical knowledge to hit the aorta.

Even on the run, in a formal outfit on a formal social call, she must remain the scientist, pragmatic and finding the minute answer to her theories.

****

Three months, one change of identity and too many nights hugging herself to sleep to not feel Shepard’s absence later, she tracks down “Rasa” to her safehouse.

She stays her hand, because to ruin Cerberus's work would be an affront to science, even if the thing on the table is nothing but an amalgam, a duplicate made of Shepard's spare parts.

She is so tired from being on the run, she lacks the strength to be shocked anymore.

Her clothes are loose on her frame, hard muscles that Shepard had bashfully admitted to “find pleasing,” partially lost to too much waiting and not enough solid nutrition.

“Six months, for this, and I never even got a steak for all my hard work.” Her stomach rumbles, loud enough to wake nearly any sleeper. The perfectly fake copy of her girlfriend does not stir. Limbs missing, or in partial stages, exposed jaw bone and muscle.

She’s been here less then three minutes, and this freak show is too much for her nerves to stomach.

She raids the refrigerator, glistening white like heaven amid cold, empty steel walls. 

That peanut butter and jelly sandwich and coffee with real sugar is as close to a religious experience as Miranda will ever get. Tears long not shed spill down, and each mouthful of food keeps her from surrendering to her inevitable capture by Cerberus headhunters

****

Her hands ache from a tenuous grip as she slowly lowers herself through the exposed grate from the air duct onto the carpet below.

Shepard does not stir. Everything below her chin entombed in soft sheets. Miranda crouches down, moves ghost-like across the floor to the only table in this too large solitary room Shepard has for a cell.

Places the gun, some books, and a few files on the table gingerly, as everything she carries on her was made of glass.

She tries her best to slide silently into bed, but Shepard stirs. 

“Miri?” Voiced tinged with exhaustion, and something that to Miranda’s ears sounds like disbelief.

Shepard is still as hard-toned as ever, and yet her grasp on Miranda’s hand is the same as if it was a fallen baby bird. Amid the faint moonlight, Miranda can feel a skip to her heartbeat as Shepard turns to look at her.

”Oh Miri,” Shepard says on an exhale, and rolls over into Miranda’s waiting arms. Miranda kisses Shepard, all six months of desperation and hope and hunting wrapped up in that one instant of physical contact.

When they break apart, Miranda presses a glove to Shepard’s cheek.

”Just go back to sleep Shepard. I promise, I’ll explain everything in the morning.” Shepard looks at her forlornly, as if Miranda were a one night stand with all intent on bolting out the door before the break of dawn.

”I never knew what love could be like till I met you,” Shepard mumbles, sadness in her voice and going to press her face in the crook of Miranda’s neck, strong arms keeping her pressed to her long lost partner.

”Oh how I’ve missed that familiar scent of vanilla,” Miranda whispers in her ear, feeling the vibrations from Shepard’s soft laugh against her skin.

If six months had brought her this moment of peace from encroaching Armageddon, she tried to use the last of her wakeful mind to imagine a life long after this war is over.


End file.
